


Cups and Claws

by KiaMianara



Category: Beauty and the Beast (1991), Disney - All Media Types
Genre: Beast is insecure, Gen, Mrs. Potts is optimistic, cups are fearless, except for a little bit of head canon, your childhood is safe with me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-13
Updated: 2016-07-13
Packaged: 2018-07-23 20:25:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7478757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KiaMianara/pseuds/KiaMianara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes time to get used to claws where hands used to be and cups are fragile either way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cups and Claws

**Author's Note:**

> First of: your childhood is safe with me. Yes, this is a Disney’s Beauty and the Beast fanfic that I would have sworn three days ago I would never ever write, but I had a fascinating dream and needed to write it down.
> 
> It’s a short collection of scenes, more like a character study, except that I can’t tell you what I meant to with it. It’s in chronological order and most of it is set before Belle even arrived in the castle.
> 
> Before you read this a little warning: I’ll briefly touch child death in this. Nothing graphic, but I wondered how Chip can be Mrs. Potts’ son though she looks more like his grandmother and where the other cups are from and where they went when the curse was lifted. In case you are unsure, I’m more direct in the end notes about the matter.
> 
> Enjoy.

* * *

 

Mrs. Potts had lost a shoe and Adam refused to question how a teapot could lose a shoe. A porcelain teapot at that, which was why he was holding her with the highest concentration, painfully aware how very easily he could break her, could have even before.

 

“There is nothing to it. Just slip it back on.”

 

He did, looking anywhere but the porcelain that had been a woman once between the claws that should have been his hands. Nothing was as it had been anymore, except Mrs. Potts’ joyful disposition.

 

“Thank you, dear.”

 

Adam – even the name started to feel wrong – tried to smile, but he could feel his face was the mask of one who had forgotten how to smile

 

*~*~*~*~*

 

There was a book, a tome really, that just wouldn’t stop snapping at him. Beast growled and snapped back and finally bound it close with a rope.

 

Frustrated – and that didn’t even have anything to do with the tome. It was becoming a permanent condition – he went to the kitchens for tea. He didn’t even like the brew that much, but for some reason it still was his go to solution.

 

Mrs. Potts was there, of course she was, talking with a cup.

 

He didn’t touch the cups, ever, yet they broke so easily regardless.

 

Beast left them to break something that didn’t have eyes or a voice.

 

*~*~*~*~*

 

The next time there were two cups, then three, then many. They all looked the same, at least to him, except for the first one. Beast couldn’t say how, but that was how it was. The cup called himself Chip and Mrs. Potts cared for them all.

 

They were young children, or used to be. There had been children in his castle, Beast assumed, but the number surprised him and why did they appear one after the other?

 

“Where are they from?”

 

“Oh, just lost souls in need of a home.”

 

He wanted to ask why she said `souls´ and how lost they must have been to end up here of all places, yet couldn’t imagine liking the answer, so he left. The tome had torn the rope apart, again. He was sure at this point that it was actually a metaphor, but didn’t give a damn about it and went to find a leather cord.

 

*~*~*~*~*

 

Beast was drunk. It had taken some effort and dedication to the task, not to mention frustration about the snapping tome breaking free again, but he had managed.

 

Probably no one was more surprised to discover he was a jolly drunk than Beast himself, but that’s the way it was. It was scaring the house staff greatly, except Mrs. Potts, who watched over everything with a benevolent smile. The cups weren’t scared either and, though they couldn’t get drunk, they were jolly with him and not afraid to clamper all over him. Chip was balancing on the mantel piece, swinging a silly hat on his handle.

 

For the first time in forever Beast forgot to be careful, dancing and dropping into an armchair with a roaring laugh without even once checking for anything or anyone he might accidentally sit on.

 

 

The next day Chip had a crack. He had fallen off the mantel piece onto a cushion and laughed it up like it was nothing. All the other cups were hale; Beast still never drank again, took the snapping tome, put it between larger, heavier ones and bound them all with two large belts.

 

*~*~*~*~*

 

 

He didn’t remember the tome until Belle discovered it by chance and asked why it snapped, because even now it wouldn’t stop.

 

Before he could stop her Belle freed the book, but it didn’t try to bite her. Beast hadn’t even known what the book was about, never wondered either until she read the title out loud.

 

“Words are powerful” he mused. “They contain stories, lives, last wills, yet this one could not be contained. `Family´ is such a strange word. I wonder how the wordsmiths of old decided on it.”

 

“Family is a powerful thing. I suppose they needed a word to match it” Belle laughed and began reading from the tome. Beast thought of dancing cups and eyes without fear and settled down to listen.

**Author's Note:**

> About my thoughts on Chip and the other cups: I didn’t really think on it before the dream this story is based on, but Mrs. Potts seems a bit too old to be Chip’s mother, doesn’t she? If she were his grandmother, that I’d believe, but according to Disney she’s his mother. And what about all the other cups? With all the living cutlery and stuff around it would be reasonable to say that the curse turned humans into objects and previously lifeless objects became alive, yet Mrs. Potts calls the other cups Chip’s brothers and sisters when she urges him to sleep in the cupboard. That is a very specific thing to call them, yet only Chip appears to have been turned into a human at the end of the movie.
> 
> So my idea is: Chip and the cups were restless spirits, either childish in nature or indeed the spirits of deceased children who had come across the haunted castle and decided it was as good a place to stay as they would find. Maybe Chip was the youngest in a way, very recently deceased, so the spell kind of mistook him for a living soul and gave him a body, while the other spirits passed on. The same concept could be applied to all the beer steins with souls of warriors or something.
> 
> As I said, it’s entirely based on the impressions I got from the dream, so the chance that I can explain anything is rather slim, but if you have questions, remarks or anything I’ll be happy about your comments.


End file.
